BitTorrent’s Bleep P2P messaging service now has offline support

BitTorrent today updated its encrypted P2P chat app Bleep with offline messaging support. You can download the new version from labs.bittorrent.com/bleep. The Bleep team explains why it originally had to forgo the convenience of offline messaging when it began development: “Without a server to store the messages, we needed a little more time to iron out the details of sending and receiving messages to offline users with the security we can guarantee during real-time chats.” Now, you can use Bleep to send messages to an offline user.

BitTorrent’s secure work-in-progress messaging service Bleep has taken its first step toward offline messaging, the company has announced. Formerly known as BitTorrent Chat, Bleep is a peer-to-peer messaging app that promises to keep one’s messages safe from prying eyes, something that in itself made offering offline messaging problematic. Though that issue hasn’t been fully resolved, BitTorrent has taken a “basic” step toward offering it by allowing users to send offline messages…with one catch. BitTorrent made the announcement on its blog today, revealing that Bleep users can now fire chats at another user who is offline. Those chats won’t be delivered, however, until both the recipient and the sender are both online again. The feature is called Offline Messaging, and it opens up an option for sending offline chats without compromising the message’s security, which is central to the service. The reason both users need to be online for the messages to be sent is fairly obvious: without using servers, the message itself resides on the sender’s device, staying put until the recipient is back online.